


What are the Real X-Men?

by FarCryZine



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Mutant Powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 04:57:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14277390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FarCryZine/pseuds/FarCryZine
Summary: The X-Men are out to recruit, but it's not what it seems.





	What are the Real X-Men?

The sauna was dim now, but she was getting out anyway. Stepping out, grabbing a towel around her, she reached down, her hair dripping. She remembered just in time to dry her hand on the drooping towel before she plugged in the lamp.  
It was warm, the plug. She held it, pushing it further into the outlet, realizing that her mind was drifting, thinking of humming birds and elevators, summer breezes and the smell of an old basement refrigerator kicking on.  
“Shit,” the door slammed open and he rushed over to her. She released the plug. She slumped next to the outlet.  
“Are you ok?!” He yelled. “Shit. Do you need an ambulance? Can you hear me?”  
She was being shaken. He looked very concerned so she mumbled something.  
“S’ok. Fine. Zuzzy. Mmmm.”  
“What were you thinking? You’re wet! Electricity!” He stood. “Jesus. I’m going to call 911.” He went for the door.  
“No!” She mustered strength, held up her palm—and the door slammed closed in his face. She didn’t notice, but he did.  
His whole demeanor changed. “How do you feel?” He was calm now, waiting. “You might be affected, somehow.”  
“I feel…Just a little out of it. Like I hit my head, or fell out of a tree…” She said. He looked shocked again now, so she grinned. “A small tree. Help me up.”  
At her words, he felt a strange compulsion inside to move over to her and give her aid. The words help me up reverberated in his mind. It was a foreign, unfamiliar pull. Now he felt deeply worried.  
“Carry me,” she put her hands on his shoulders.  
Hearing her command, he bent, like a robot and picked her up. She felt so light. But he knew it wasn’t her weight. It was the fact that he couldn’t feel his body. He could probably lift a 300-pound man right now if she told him to. In that detached state, he carried her up to their bedroom and laid her on the bed. After he deposited her there, he felt as if a curtain had lifted off his brain. He heard all the sounds of everyday life again, the cars going by. A woodpecker started up on the tree outside the window.  
“Oh, not the dammed woodpecker again.” She moaned on the bed, holding her head.  
The woodpecker’s sounds stopped and he heard a soft thump. He pulled aside the curtain and saw the body of the bird on the ground. His legs began trembling.  
“Ann. Listen to me. You can’t let them get to you.”  
“Who?” Her mouth was half covered by the pillow. She lay on her side.  
“They will be coming after you soon. Now that you have your power. It’s Will.”  
“What? What do you mean? Who’s Will.” Her head was pounding and she felt dehydrated.  
He came and sat on the bed, putting his hand on her leg. “Not Will: a person. I mean your will.” He made a fist in front of his chest. “Your will is like…God. Whatever you say, or want…it happens.” She was silent in that absorbing, blank way she had. “You can will things to happen.”  
“Who’ll come for me? The government?” She sat up against the pillows.  
His half-smile was rueful. “Maybe them too. But I’m talking about the X-Men. Just hear me out before you start making that face. You may think they’re all cool, like in the movies. But living with them for real…they’re insane. Real lunatics. Like, the should be locked up kind. But they can’t be locked up. Their powers are too strong.” He trailed off.  
“X-Men.” She said.  
“Yeah.”  
“Real.”  
“Mm-hmm.”  
“How do you know?” She was skeptical.  
“I can see a little…into the future.” He smirked. “It’s why I’m always right.”  
“You are not, always.”  
“Why do you always have to argue?”  
She sighed and flopped back. A chill went through him when he realized he would have to tread lightly now. Her words and actions could be dangerous. 

 

She dreamt of colors and forces colliding, people running, struggling to get somewhere…She came to in a chair, tried to lift her hands to her face and realized they were velcroed to the chair, as were her ankles.  
A deep voice, coated in false smoothness and floating on waves of inflection began behind her. “In each mind, is a fortune cookie.”  
She turned her head to see him, but he was just on the blurry edge of her peripheral vision. She saw black pants, a grey sweater, someone with dark hair, standing near a window. The room looked like a dilapidated 1950s living room, or parlour.  
“This fortune cookie, sits in the brain, slowly disintegrating.”  
Out the window were pines. The window was dirty. He began to pace, still just out of her vision. This furniture sucks, thought. Bad taste.  
“The fortune cookie, disintegrates, and when the protective cookie shell is gone, the fortune,” he chuckled “spills into your brain, altering is chemistry.”  
He came to stand in front of her. The man before her looked like a college lecturer, in his late 40s, tired. “Yes, the furniture is terrible. But we just can’t have nice things.”  
As if on cue, a man began roaring in another room, and she heard sounds of wood thumping on wood. The man in front of her sighed, “Everything is temporary anyway. Most things are destroyed.”  
“…Destroyed,” it was a girlish whisper, followed by a creepy giggle. The word sounded as if it was uttered right next to her ear. She twisted in her chair, but no one was there. Someone who could throw their voice? Someone invisible? Another roar of pain, sounding as if from through gritted teeth, resounded from further in the house to their carpeted room.  
Ann was filled with sadness, but didn’t really know why. She was alone now, with these people, in this place. But what about before? She remembered her house, and love. A sharp inner feeling of warning stopped her thoughts immediately and she looked up at the man.  
“I’m Tom. You’re Ann. I can tell you’re trying to remember. But most people here will agree that it’s best not to.” He smiled quickly, and it was gone.  
“All Berserker does is remember, and listen to him.” The girl’s voice came again, this time in front of her, the following giggle drifting away through the room, toward the doorway.  
“You seem tired, so I’ll take you to a room.” Tom’s voice was placating and oily, and he seemed to be ignoring the ghostly giggling. “But just remember, some of us don’t need doors to move through rooms.”

The room was basic, like a guest room in a suburban split-level house, circa 1991. She sat on a saggy mattress, looked skeptically at the glass of water on the nightstand. The door was still ajar. She concentrated, holding her hand up at it. “Lock!” She said, from five feet away. Nothing happened. She put her arm down. Hm. Maybe locking is too complicated. “Close,” She tried, and felt something. The door wavered. She closed her eyes, really wanting the door to close, then put up her hand up again. “Close!” The door slammed shut. “Lock!” Nothing. And that hurt her head way too much. Must be something about mechanisms….She flopped down, letting her eyes see into her mind instead of the white ceiling.  
She tried to call up the feelings of love, of someone at home, loving her. A blurry image of a man holding her, shaking her in the sauna swims into her mind. She can’t quite see him. She remembered sitting on their bed. He asked her to promise, promise to forget me….His face, his head, none of it is memorable. If they take you, he’d said, promise to forget me. Forget me, with your Will. She knew it would protect him, so she did.


End file.
